Category: Security

John Alberghini, like many of his fellow veterans, was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. His friend, Ed Mishard, was exposed, too.

“We sprayed it out of our helicopter,” Mishard said.

“Right on me,” Alberghini replied, laughing.

The symptoms of exposure to Agent Orange, a herbicide used by the U.S. military as a defoliant during the Vietnam War, are varied. There’s an increased risk of cancers, including bladder cancer and prostate cancer, as well as Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and hypertension. Many of those exposed experience neuropathy, a tingling and numbness in the hands and feet.

Mishard and Alberghini last week were sitting down with some friends, all fellow veterans, at a local fast food restaurant in Monroe. Many, if not all of those conditions, were present.

“It doesn’t go away. It stays in your system. It could be dormant for years,” said Pat Buzzeo, sitting at the head of the table.

“One of my buddies, I was with him over there, he died, from the Agent Orange, he got blood cancer. Some people get it. Some people don’t,” Alberghini said. “I always call Agent Orange a sniper. It sits up in there, you never know if you’re going to get your head blown off.”

The group gets together regularly as part of an organization called Hooks for Heroes. It gets them out fishing and to other events that help veterans, many of them disabled or homeless. Much of the conversation around the table Friday centered around health care, and their fears for the future.

The VA may be bracing for as many as 83,000 layoffs, according to reporting in Government Executive, a news site focused on government employment issues, though VA spokesman Peter Kasperowicz said by email that those cuts haven’t happened yet.

The “VA has set up a structure to begin the planning process for reforming the department, but has not made any personnel changes yet,” he said. “VA will run through a deliberative process and find ways to improve care and benefits for veterans without cutting care and benefits for veterans.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking member on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, held a so-called “shadow hearing” last week to hear from VA employees who had already lost their jobs. By some estimates, as many as 30% of staff at the agency are veterans themselves.

“These firings have disproportionately affected our VA and veterans’ workforce, and the harm to them individually will become painfully clear today,” Blumenthal said. “They have suffered from uncertainty, from financial distress, from emotional hardship, in ways that I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump need to understand.”

Health care changes

Alberghini and Mishard both said that when they got back home after the war, health care for veterans was not very well organized. You’d show up for your appointment at the VA and wait. Then, when 4 p.m. rolled around, they’d be told, “go home, come back tomorrow.”

“And I had a scheduled appointment,” Mishard said. “That’s how bad it was back in early ’70s. But nowadays it’s better.”

Ken Wielk, sitting across the table from Alberghini, had a similar experience.

“When I came home on leave, I was sick. So, my father says, ‘Why don’t you just go to the VA, see what they can do for it,’” he said. “I went to the VA because I was the closest, in my mind, military installation. I get there, I spent all day there just to get an antibiotic.”

Nowadays, the group agreed, it’s different.

“Yesterday, I was at the VA, and I had a regular appointment at neurology. I showed them something on my back, right? The doctor was, within five minutes, calling two dermatologists,” said Buzzeo who is also Hooks for Heroes president. “He got me a blood test and gave me a prescription. All within an hour, and you don’t get that on the outside.”

Now, with a large number of anticipated cuts to the VA, the group is concerned that they might go back to the old days, when getting health care was difficult at the VA.

The agency itself, however, said it’s not going to cut medical staff.

“We’re not talking about reducing medical staff or claims processors; we’re talking about reducing bureaucracy and inefficiencies that are getting in the way of customer convenience and service to veterans,” Kasperowicz said.

That was not much of a consolation to Mishard, though, who said losing any staff can’t be a good thing.

“They need more people,” he said. “They’re understaffed as it is.”

The group agreed, as Alberghini put it, that “there’s a lot of fat when I go to hospitals,” where efficiencies could be made. But, at the same time, VA doctors tend to spend more time with their patients than other doctors, often 30 minutes or more if needed. There is a level of personal attention the veterans at the table were concerned about losing.

“They’ll go through the whole thing for a half-hour, then they’ll go to their boss that is in charge of the department. They’ll explain everything to them, what they find in those records,” Buzzeo said. “You don’t have to go see another doctor on the outside. You don’t have to get two or three different opinions on what is going on. So, I wouldn’t give that up.”

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© 2025 the New Haven Register

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A 14-year-old accused of gunning down a pair of New Jersey police officers, killing one of them, is expected to be tried as an adult in the shooting.

The unidentified teen is facing counts including murder, attempted murder and possession of illegal weapons in connection with the gun battle in Newark last month, culminating in the shooting death of 26-year-old Detective Joseph Azcona.

Under state law, juveniles below the age of 15 can’t be tried as adults — so New Jersey’s interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba is working to have the charges transferred to federal court.

“This is really the way it should be,” she said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Thursday. “If you shoot a police officer, if you shoot anyone, I don’t care what your age is. If you’re part of a gang and you have a repeated history of crime, you will be tried as an adult.”

The shooting unfolded the night of March 7 at Carteret St. and Broadway, near a McDonald’s and a White Castle not far from the Passaic River.

Police said the gunman fired off more than two dozen shots as officers closed in, fatally striking Azcona, a five-year-veteran of the Newark Police Department.

He’d been responding to the area as part of an intelligence team seeking suspects in an illegal weapons investigation, police said, adding that he didn’t even have a chance to step out of his vehicle before he was fatally struck.

Azcona’s partner was also wounded in the shooting, as was the teen, whose name has not been released because of his age. He remains in the hospital, according to Habba.

“He was going to go under the state which meant that he would have had a very low sentence if he was found guilty, which I’m sure he would be,” Habba said.

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© 2025 New York Daily News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A San Diego Superior Court judge has issued a ruling that bars a Texas-based company from selling and marketing in California a computer-controlled milling machine designed to make untraceable “ghost guns,” with the decision marking the third significant victory for San Diego County in the early stages of its lawsuit against the company.

The county’s lawsuit, filed last May on behalf of state residents, accused Defense Distributed and several related entities of slapping a new name and paint job on the “Ghost Gunner” milling machine, which is barred from sale in California, and instead illegally marketing and selling the device in California under the name “Coast Runner.”

The county claimed that “ghost guns such as the ones that can be manufactured using the Coast Runner are fueling an epidemic of gun violence across the country.”

On Thursday, Judge Loren Freestone confirmed a tentative ruling he made last week granting the county’s motion for preliminary injunction. The injunction bars Defense Distributed from selling or marketing the Coast Runner “and any other substantially similar (computer-controlled) milling machine in California,” pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

“The People have demonstrated that Defendants have likely attempted to evade the law by essentially rebranding the Ghost Gunner as the Coast Runner,” Freestone wrote in his ruling. “The Ghost Gunner and the Coast Runner share not only a similar name, but also a similar design, similar parts, and similar features. The operator’s manual for the two products is also substantially similar, and the manual for the Coast Runner even makes reference to the Ghost Gunner by using the initials ‘GG.’”

County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who has championed gun-safety regulations, called the preliminary injunction “a big step forward in our fight to hold ghost gun manufacturers accountable for choosing profit over public safety.”

Attorneys for Defense Distributed and the other defendants, Ghost Gunner Inc. and Coast Runner Industries Inc., did not respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision.

The preliminary injunction ruling — which came just days after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal regulation on ghost guns — is the third notable legal victory for the county in the 11 months since it filed the lawsuit in partnership with Giffords Law Center, the legal arm of the gun control advocacy group named after former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and wounded in a mass shooting and assassination attempt during a public speaking event. Attorneys from Giffords Law Center and Sullivan & Cromwell are representing the county pro bono.

Last October, after the defendants sought to move the case to a federal court in Texas, a federal judge in San Diego ruled that not only would the case not be moved to Texas, but it would be remanded back down to San Diego Superior Court where the county first filed.

The defendants then sought to dismiss the suit under California’s anti-SLAPP laws, arguing the county’s lawsuit was unlawful retaliation against Defense Distributed for filing prior federal litigation against the state and for exercising its First Amendment right to free speech through political advocacy. But Freestone denied that motion in February, ruling that the county’s lawsuit did not arise from the defendants’ political advocacy or prior litigation.

That all led to the preliminary injunction ruling, in which the judge found that the county “demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits” of its claims.

The county claimed in its lawsuit that Coast Runner Industries “is merely an alter ego of Ghost Gunner Inc. and Defense Distributed” that was created shortly after Defense Distributed lost a federal lawsuit in October 2022. That lawsuit had challenged the California law that bans the sale and marketing of computer numerical control, or CNC, milling machines that are primarily designed to manufacture firearms.

The judge agreed with the county’s claim, noting that the founder of Defense Distributed and Ghost Gunner also incorporated Coast Runner and did so shortly after Defense Distributed lost its federal lawsuit. “The timing reasonably suggests that Coast Runner … was intended as an end-run around the law,” Freestone wrote, adding that Coast Runner marketing materials also showed its clear connections to Defense Distributed and Ghost Gunner.

“The Ghost Gunner website also indicated that purchasers in California would receive a Coast Runner in lieu of a Ghost Gunner,” Freestone wrote. “This reasonably links them to the product’s sale and distribution.”

The judge also noted in his order that the defendants argued the Coast Runner device was not intended primarily for firearm manufacturing because it’s classified by the U.S. Department of Commerce as a general-purpose machine. “But the Ghost Gunner is also classified in that manner, and there is no genuine dispute that the Ghost Gunner is intended for firearm manufacturing,” the judge ruled.

The defendants also argued, according to the judge, that the state laws they are accused of violating are not lawful under the Second Amendment. The judge ruled that the California statutes outlawing CNC milling machines likely do not violate the Second Amendment, in part because the Coast Runner is not an “arm” protected by that amendment.

“It is not, itself, a weapon,” Freestone wrote. “It is instead a machine that can be used to manufacture a type of weapon.”

The term ghost gun can refer to weapons manufactured in a variety of ways, whether from a CNC milling machine, a 3D printer or put together by hand from parts in a prepackaged kit. The defining factor is that they do not have serial numbers, making them hard for law enforcement to track and thus attractive to criminals or people otherwise barred from owning guns.

The county argued in its lawsuit that the proliferation of ghost guns in California has been dramatic. Citing a 2023 report from the California Office of Gun Violence Prevention, it asserted that in 2015, authorities in California recovered 26 ghost guns in connection with crimes, but by 2022 that number had skyrocketed to 12,894.

Esther Sanchez-Gomez, litigation director for the Giffords Law Center, praised the injunction ruling as a “major victory for gun safety” and California citizens.

“We … look forward to making the injunction issued today permanent,” Sanchez-Gomez said in a statement.

The lawsuit filed by the county last year was the first civil litigation of its kind undertaken by the county since the Board of Supervisors agreed in 2022 to sue gunmakers.

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© 2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Actor Jay North, who as a child star personified mischief as “Dennis the Menace,” has died. He was 73.

His death Sunday after years of contending with colon cancer was announced by longtime family friend Laurie Jacobson on social media, and confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter by his “Dennis the Menace” co-star Jeannie Russell. Russell, who played Dennis’s friend Margaret Wade on the comedy series, said North died at his home in Lake Butler, Fla.

“Our dear friend Jay North has been fighting cancer for a number of years, and this morning at noon EST, Jay passed peacefully at home,” Jacobson, a writer, producer and actress, wrote on FaceBook Sunday. “As many of his fans know, he had a difficult journey in Hollywood and after…but he did not let it define his life. He had a heart as big as a mountain, loved his friends deeply. He called us frequently and ended every conversation with, ‘I love you with all my heart.’ And we loved him with all of ours.”

Born Aug. 3, 1951, in Hollywood, North was an only child whose father deserted the family when the boy was 4, according to TMZ. Mother Dorothy North was a secretary for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, before the union merged with the Screen Actors Guild to become SAG-AFTRA, and helped get the TV-fascinated youth’s foot in the show-biz door.

North began acting before age 10, first appearing on the children’s show “Cartoon Express,” which is where he caught the attention of talent agent Hazel MacMillan, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Through MacMillan, North snagged bit parts in “77 Sunset Strip,” “Rescue 8,” “The Detectives” among others.

In 1959, North was hired as the rascally, towheaded personification of the comic strip character created by Hank Ketcham. Dennis Mitchell was an only child whose helpful intentions often ended in mishap. North appeared in all 146 episodes of the CBS series, which ran on Sunday evenings from 1959 through 1963, sandwiched between “Lassie” and “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

The role brought North national recognition and extended to commercials he filmed in character for show sponsors Kellogg’s cereals, Best Foods mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter and Bosco milk, Forbes noted. He also appeared as Dennis in crossover episodes of “The Red Skelton Show” and “The Donna Reed Show.”

Years later he would recount being browbeaten and abused by his aunt and uncle, whose exacting performance standards had him isolated and on tenterhooks throughout the series.

North worked on and off in Hollywood in the years after “Dennis the Menace” was canceled, in addition to stints in the military, the health food industry and as a correctional officer for the Florida Department of Corrections, according to People. He also co-founded a group, A Minor Consideration, to assist other former child stars.

Russell called North her “otherwordly brother,” as she told The Hollywood Reporter. Jacobson, who is married to former “Lassie” child actor Jon Provost, echoed the sentiment.

“A life-long friend of Jon’s, a brother to Jeanne and a dear friend to me, we will miss him terribly,” Jacobson wrote in her post. “He is out of pain now. His suffering is over. At last he is at peace.”

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© 2025 New York Daily News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Sgt. Joe Harris lived a beautiful life.

He sailed to earth on numerous missions as a member of the U.S. Army’s first all-Black paratrooper battalion during World War II, the 555th, aptly nicknamed the “Triple Nickles.”

At his funeral service on Saturday, friends, families and uniformed members of the military danced and sang to honor Harris, believed to be oldest paratrooper veteran when he died March 15.

He was 108.

“He was a kind, caring, compassionate man,” his daughter La Tanya Pittman told The Times. “He didn’t let the fact that he was fighting for freedom during segregated times stop him from living his life.”

Harris, who was born in Westdale, La., on June 19, 1916, died in a Los Angeles hospital surrounded by family. He lay in repose Saturday at Lewis Metropolitan CME Church.

Many cried, but they also laughed, as the service felt like a homecoming — one last leap for Harris into the unknown.

His grandson, Ashton Pittman, thanked his grandfather for all that he sacrificed.

“He was our rock, the foundation among which generations have been built,” he said.

Harris received full military honors and was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

His funeral procession included a World War II Willys Jeep escort and a military aircraft flew over the Harris home in Compton, where he lived for more than 60 years.

Compton Mayor Emma Sharif announced the city was exploring plans to rename a street after Harris.

Members of the U.S. National Forest Service and veterans from different branches of the military dressed in World War II-era uniforms.

They included retired U.S. Army Sgt. Donald Garrison, who first met Harris several years ago and has participated in commemorative events and parachute jumps honoring the Triple Nickles.

“Holy smokes, man, he paved the way for people like myself,” Garrison said, as his voice broke. “I get a little emotional because I feel it in my heart. He sacrificed so much, because he wasn’t supposed to be anything other than a steward, a cook or valet. He was a paratrooper — a hero.”

La Tanya Pittman said her father was skilled as a paratrooper, but wanted to become a pilot while he was in the military.

“They wouldn’t let him even try,” she said. “But he still went on to serve his country.”

As a member of the “Triple Nickles” Harris was part of a combat-ready unit, but the paratroopers were not sent overseas. Instead, they trained as some of America’s first “smokejumpers.”

They were tasked with parachuting into Pacific Northwest forests to fight wildfires ignited by Japanese balloon bombs launched into North America from across the Pacific Ocean.

Operation Firefly, a highly secretive mission, saw the smokejumpers put out wildfires and disarm any downed explosives.

They were stationed in Pendleton, Ore., and Chico, Calif., where they responded to 36 fires and made 1,200 jumps, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

A key reason the operation was kept secret was to limit news from reaching Japan about the the balloon bombs that arrived in North America, said chief historian Matt Seelinger with the Army Historical Foundation.

Although six people were killed near Bly, Ore., when they discovered a downed balloon in May 1945, the overall damage caused by the weapons was limited.

“The balloons did not work as the Japanese intended,” Seelinger said.

Harris made 72 successful jumps while he was with the Army, according to the organization Beyond the Call, which documents veterans’ stories.

The smokejumpers were equipped with wildland firefighting gear, including a football-style leather helmet with a grill in front and other tools.

After his honorable discharge, Harris purchased a home in Compton and had three children with his high school sweetheart, Louise Singleton Harris. He went on to work for the U.S. Border Patrol for nearly 40 years.

Former Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, who grew up next door to the Harris family, danced in Harris’ living room next to a large radio console when he was 3 or 4.

“His favorite thing was to invite me over and have me dance in front of his buddies,” said Bradley, who later learned the other men were veteran paratroopers with the 555th. “But if he really wanted me to turn it on, he’d throw $1 down, and I would have the whole house — his wife, his kids, everybody — laughing, because I’d start doing the splits.”

Harris was a father figure and a constant fixture in the Compton community.

“He was stalwart, committed and unwavering,” Bradley said. “A true American.”

U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former wildland firefighter Neil Gallagher felt honored to visit Harris at his home in January.

He and two other veterans presented Harris with a Pulaski, a wildfire tool used for building firebreaks, and a paratrooper patch.

“They fought fascism and then fought racism,” said Gallagher, who is the founder of the oral history nonprofit Preserving Their Stories.

“Our country has a duty to ensure heroes like Mr. Harris are never forgotten, and that starts with providing units such as the 555th the recognition they deserve,” he said.

Harris was preceded in death by his wife in 1981 and one grandson.

Harris is survived by two daughters, one son, four grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and 20 great-great-grandchildren.

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© 2025 Los Angeles Times.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

President Donald Trump’s administration issued an emergency order on Friday targeting a 25% increase in logging quotas following multiple wildfire disasters in recent months.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced an emergency order on Friday to increase timber production in the United States and designate an “emergency situation on National Forest System lands.”

Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins noted in Friday’s order that national forests are currently “in crisis due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species and other stressors.”

Rollins warned that the issues threatening national forests in the United States combined with “overgrown forests,” “rigorous fire suppression,” and an increased number of homes located in the “wildland-urban interface” have led to a “full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis.”

“Immediate action is needed to mitigate risk, protect public health and safety and critical infrastructure, support local and rural economies, and mitigate threats to natural resources on NFS lands,” Rollins stated. “We can do more to contribute to American prosperity and protect our national and economic security.”

In addition to the threat of wildfires, Friday’s emergency order noted that the United States could have more than enough timber to meet the country’s “domestic timber production needs” but that federal policies have traditionally “prevented full utilization of these resources and made us reliant on foreign producers.”

READ MORE: Viral Video: Hollywood star blasts Gov. Newsom over wildfires

“It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security,” Rollins added.

Following Friday’s emergency order, Forest Service officials have been tasked with developing plans to increase timber harvesting opportunities by 25% over the next few years, according to The Associated Press.

According to Fox 2, the Trump administration’s emergency order covers roughly 176,000 square miles of forest. The outlet noted that the order designating land for additional timber harvesting is primarily located in the West; however, Trump’s order also extends to forest land in the Great Lakes region, the New England Region, and in the South. Fox 2 reported that the emergency order includes approximately 59% of Forest Service lands.

The Associated Press reported that while environmental activist groups have criticized the Trump administration’s emergency order, the logging industry has pointed to a need for additional logging opportunities.

“This industry needs a raw supply to remain competitive and keep the doors open,” American Forest Resource Council President Travis Joseph said. “We’re not even reaching half of what forest plans currently call for. Let’s implement our forest plans across the country, and if we did that, that should increase the volume that’s available to American mills and create American jobs and create revenue.”

Will Nuovo Pasta’s pesto sauce taste the same if the Stratford company has to substitute American basil for herbs grown in Italy? Will a Connecticut electronics factory be able to expand if tariffs double the cost of tools from China that aren’t made anywhere else?

Those are the questions Connecticut Chief Manufacturing Officer Paul Lavoie has been fielding the past week as businesses calculate the impact of President Trump’s new tariffs.

“Manufacturers are concerned,” Lavoie said. “The administration policies on tariffs are designed to create manufacturing jobs and manufacturing opportunities, but you can’t do it in a vacuum like it’s being done now.”

Due to years of off-shoring and outsourcing, the nation’s manufacturing capacity has been reduced and it will take years to build the factories and workforce needed, Lavoie said.

“You shouldn’t put tariffs on products without putting catalyst capital in the marketplace to increase the capacity to make products here, and that hasn’t been done,” Lavoie said. If the tariffs aren’t moderated, he added, “what it’s going to do is it’s going to crush small- to medium-sized manufacturers.”

Even with the recent turmoil, Lavoie said Connecticut manufacturing could serve as a model of modernization and innovation as companies seek to re-shore production. He spoke at an event on Tuesday celebrating collaborations to bring new Connecticut-made products to the market.

FORGE, a nonprofit that helps “hard-tech” entrepreneurs scale up, handed out grant checks to startups at the event, held at Gyre9’s 40,000-square-foot contract manufacturing space in Southbury. AtlasXomics, a New Haven company that designed a tissue-analyzing device used in drug design, won a $70,000 grant as part of FORGE’s Product Development Funding Program. Woodbridge-based SedMed won $50,000 to help develop its hydraulic toilet lift.

Programs like FORGE and the state’s Manufacturing Innovation Fund are why Connecticut could help model re-shoring of manufacturing on a national scale, Lavoie said. Due to a range of initiatives and boom times at Electric Boat, the state’s manufacturing sector was growing 5% a year prior to Trump’s tariffs. Manufacturing’s share of the state’s economy grew from 10% in 2022 to 12.6% this year, representing $2 billion in increased revenues, Lavoie added.

Even with the new tariffs, Connecticut’s defense manufacturing sector, which mainly relies on domestic supply chains, could also see growth opportunities as Trump promises to boost the military budget to $1 trillion next year, Lavoie said.

“We have all the right contacts with all the right people in Washington, D.C., to be able to say, ‘Hey, Connecticut has the workforce. Connecticut has the supply chain. Connecticut has the skills to make more submarines,’” Lavoie said. “If you’re going to put money anywhere, put it into Connecticut so we can help the rest of the nation.”

One caveat for Trump’s team: Growth in manufacturing doesn’t necessarily mean dramatic growth in jobs due to productivity gains and modern technology, Lavoie said. With changes in immigration policy, manufacturers are also losing access to the new Americans who powered explosive manufacturing growth in prior decades, he added.

Connecticut’s response to its long-time labor woes can help inform national policy as immigration declines, Lavoie said. “We’re never going to have enough people. But the only way for us to do it, and to do it in a cost-effective way, is to drive innovation,” he said.

Connecticut’s deep pool of technical and research talent could help propel the state into the front ranks of re-shoring destinations despite high energy and labor costs, said Gyre9 President Ed Gilchrest.

“We have more opportunities than ever here, people wanting to bring stuff back into the U.S.,” Gilchrest said. “It should be done in Connecticut.”

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© 2025 Journal Inquirer

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

On the outskirts of Lima, Peru, locals stumbled upon some dusty items in a vacant lot. They didn’t know it at the time, but they’d just discovered a cache of 500-year-old treasures.

Locals in Puente Piedra district alerted officials about some historic-looking artifacts in an empty lot, Peru’s Ministry of Culture said in an April 7 news release. A joint team of archaeologists and police went to investigate.

At the site, archaeologists unearthed dozens of pre-Hispanic artifacts and human remains from the Late Horizon period, which lasted from 1476 to 1532, officials said.

Photos show a few of the colorful ancient textiles and fabric bags found at the site. Other 500-year-old artifacts included metal tupus, a type of pin, weaving tools such as spindles with threads, a shell, a decorated band and several bags, one of which had cotton inside.

Archaeologists identified the ancient human remains as a fractured infant skull, 25 limb and rib bones as well as a mummified head with skin and hair.

The 500-year-old finds were taken for conservation and further analysis, officials said.

Archaeologists did not say how the remains and finds came to be buried in Puente Piedra district.

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© 2025 the Merced Sun-Star

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Colorado State Patrol investigators are searching for suspects after about 600 pounds of marijuana scheduled to be destroyed were stolen from a evidence trailer last week, according to the agency.

The theft was discovered Friday morning when an evidence technician was conducting a property walkthrough of the Arapahoe County facility, according to a news release from Colorado State Patrol.

State patrol officials believe the marijuana was stolen after dark three days earlier on Tuesday, April 1, according to the release.

No suspects had been identified as of Wednesday afternoon, but investigators were searching for two cars that might be connected to the burglary: a light-colored Chevrolet Silverado and a white Honda CRV, the release stated.

State patrol officials said the thieves used a power tool to remove a lock on the evidence facility’s gates.

“Security camera system checks and exterior property walkthroughs have been increased to identify security issues faster and ensure evidence integrity,” officials stated in the release. “A comprehensive internal investigation is now underway to determine if established protocols were violated.”

There was no active case involving the marijuana and no other evidence was stolen, state patrol officials said in the release.

A report was filed with the Englewood Police Department, but the Colorado State Patrol is actively investigating the burglary.

Anyone with information on the burglary or the suspect vehicles is asked to contact state investigators at 303-239-4501

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© 2025 MediaNews Group, Inc.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Andrew Tate, the right-wing provocateur accused of rape and sex trafficking in Romania, allegedly ordered a woman into submission as he pointed a gun at her face, according to a new civil lawsuit in which four women accuse the self-proclaimed misogynist of rape, assault and coercive control between 2013 and 2015.

The 38-year-old dual U.S. and U.K. citizen allegedly put a firearm in the claimant’s face as he swore, saying, “You’re going to do as I say or there’ll be hell to pay,” according to U.K. court documents viewed by the BBC.

That particular alleged victim, identified only as AA, says she worked for Tate in 2015, during which time he allegedly “threatened [her] daily.” She says she was twice “grabbed … by her throat and pinned … up against the wall, so she was unable to move.”

The new documents accuse Tate of raping two of the women, both of whom he allegedly strangled. A third accuser was also allegedly strangled.The claimants are seeking damages “arising from the assaults, batteries, and infliction of intentional harm.”

Tate allegedly strangled the third woman as well as one of the rape victims so often that they suffered from burst capillaries.

The fourth claimant, identified as “Sienna,” told BBC she and Tate had a consensual sexual relationship until, “during sex, he started to strangle me. I passed out, and he carried on having sex with me.”

The other three accusers previously reported Tate to authorities, though the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opted against charging him in 2019.

The BBC reports that Tate submitted a written defense in which he denied the allegations against him, dismissing them as a “pack of lies.”

Late last month, just after Tate and his brother Tristan — also accused of sex trafficking in Romania — returned to Bucharest, model Bri Stern accused him of violently choking her during sex earlier in the month. Tate denied Stern’s allegations.

The brothers, who have denied any wrongdoing, are also under investigation in Florida for “publicly admitt[ing] to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” according to Attorney General James Uthmeier.

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© 2025 New York Daily News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.